Bury FC

10 domestic abuse cases every day in Bury

THERE was an average of 10 incidents of domestic violence in Bury every day last year, a new report has revealed.

It follows a request from Bury Council leader Mike Connolly for council officers to look into the scale of the problem in the borough and to outline what is being done to tackle it.

A report showed there were 3,808 recorded incidents of domestic violence in the borough in 2013.

Of the victims, 214 were categorised as “high risk” and involved a total of 245 children.

Bury Social Services draw up safeguarding plans for vulnerable children and one-third of the cases are related to domestic violence.

They say the cause of the greatest number of people going to them homeless every year is is caused by domestic violence.

In 19 per cent of cases, domestic violence victims were men. Offenders are generally identified as partners, ex-partners or relatives.

Most reports of domestic violence were received from East ward (11.9 per cent), Radcliffe East (11.4 per cent), Moorside (10.1 per cent), Radcliffe West (9.4 per cent) and Redvales (9 per cent), while the fewest reports come from North Manor (1.3 per cent), Tottington (1.7 per cent), Church ward (2.7 per cent) and Pilkington Park (3.2 per cent).

The report said: “Besses and Unsworth have both seen marked reductions in incidents over the past few years, indicating that multi-agency working, particularly through children’s centres, have been successful.

“Others such as Moorside, Radcliffe North, Sedgley and Ramsbottom have all seen increases in this time.

“With regards to Redvales, intelligence from Fairfield Hospital suggested a problem with under reporting.

“Multi-agency work has involved setting up initiatives to help raise awareness of domestic violence and the support available.” The report details the council’s four main methods of tackling domestic violence in future: l Early intervention with victims l Receiving funding to keep services running l Raising awareness in schools l Counselling offenders.

The report concluded: “A range of services and partners continue to work together to provide a range of services to protect victims and their families, as well as challenging perpetrators.”